Why Abba are jukebox darlings and Down Syndrome heroes

IF YOU want to know what people reallylisten to – not what they say they do, or what the style press tells them is "right here, right now" – then look no further than the annual jukebox charts.

The jukebox is a great leveller. Not only is it a public display of a our musical tastes, but we have to pay to use it too. You could, conceivably, bring your laptop to the pub and say, “here’s one I downloaded for free earlier”, but that really wouldn’t really be in the spirit of things.

Jukebox charts (and this particular one was for the UK for 2008) usually reflect contemporary hits. True to form, last year's one has The Killers, Girls Aloud, Duffy, Kings of Leon and Beyoncé in the top 10. But the song at No 1 (and, remarkably, it has been in the jukebox top 10 chart every year since it was first released in 1976) is perhaps ( Pretty Vacantexcepted) the most dynamically charged song going. It's Abba's Dancing Queen.

There have been some interesting developments of late in trying to unlock the Abba musical code. The band's music challenges musicologists because it defies the very strict conventions of pop music composition. Listen to Mamma Mia!and note how, weirdly, the introduction changes its rhythm on the wrong beat. On Money Money Money,one of the bars is in a very strange 9/16 time.

The consensus now seems to be that while pop music busily rids itself of any sense of classical harmony, Abba actually put it back in. And the reason they got away with such musical daring is that the essential chirpiness of the songs (except for all the divorce ones, obviously) causes the listener to stop caring.

Which is why Dancing Queenoperates successfully as a mini- symphony. It begins with an almost orchestral sweep before building to a crescendo. And those piano trills after the first line of the chorus ("You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 17") are straight from the classical handbook.

It's a well-known fact that classical music has endurance qualities, so it's no surprise that Dancing Queencan still beat off Duffy, Kings of Leon

et al in jukeboxes everywhere. And tellingly, both Duffy (old school r’n’b chanteuse) and Kings of Leon (American garage rock given a blow-dry) are from recognisable genres.

By contrast, there’s nothing in Abba’s music which suggests they are Swedish or American, or that they’re descended from blues music or any other musical genres. They’re fairly anonymous (show of hands: who can name all four members?), which means that listeners can project themselves onto the songs.

Abba are not just popular with jukebox users. Popbitch, the normally scabrous and cynical music gossip site, ran a serious story last week about Abba’s music and people with Down Syndrome. Popbitch asked readers if there was any truth in the “fact” that many people with Down Syndrome show a marked preference for Abba’s music.

More than 70 people who were either relatives or carers of people with Down Syndrome wrote back to say that, in their experience, this was indeed the case.

One reader wrote: “My partner’s older brother has Down Syndrome and has been listening and singing along to Abba virtually every day since their big Eurovision win in ’74.” Another wrote: “I work as a carer for people with learning disabilities and can attest to this ‘fact’. Any sign of ‘difficult’ behaviour and an Abba CD will work.”

These are just two of around 70 replies, which is hardly a scientific sampling. But many people whose relatives, friends or colleagues have Downs Syndrome will have noted this phenomenon themselves. Obviously, people with Down Syndrome listen to a wide variety of music, but personal experience tells me that Abba is hugely popular among people with Down Syndrome.

There’s plenty of great pop music out there, but Abba’s brand of pop is – possibly uniquely – underpinned by a classical structure. This could be the very quality that makes their music equally popular among jukebox users and those with Down Syndrome.

bboyd@irishtimes.com